The Australian flag at the entrance to Ballina District Hospital (NSW) has flapped itself to pieces.

One and a half stars of the Southern Cross are gone.

The local branch of the RSL (Returned and Services League) has complained and wants something done about it.

Not a big deal?

It might be, if you had fought in a war to defend the flag and what it stands for.

* * *

A bigger deal, media-wise, was Australian athletes at the Winter Olympics draping a huge “boxing kangaroo” flag across a multi-storey Vancouver building.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) told them to remove it.

They didn’t.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, mocked the IOC, saying, “We want to see a lot of the Boxing Kangaroo, particularly now that we’ve had this ridiculous ruling.”

* * *

Is this flag affair just a matter of taste, or is there a serious issue involved?

What does a boxing kangaroo represent?

It signifies that we will do anything — except the obviously right thing — to defy everybody and draw attention to ourselves, threatening a punch-up or similar if not given our own way.

If we must be defiant, why not do something better than the conventional thing, rather than something stupider?

* * *

In Russia, in 2002, the government ordered regions to design their own local flags.

The city of Penza (600km east of Moscow, population 500,000) defied convention by designing a flag carrying an image of Jesus.

Yury Leptev, speaking for Penza’s Social Politics Committee, explained that there is a legend that in the 1500s Ivan the Terrible presented an icon of Christ to the people of Penza.

Leptev said they had held an unofficial referendum about the flag, and support for the chosen image was “strong”.

Some non-Christian leaders criticised it, saying it “blurred the lines separating Church and State”.  (St Petersburg Times)

To which one might reply, “No need for lines separating Church and State –  as long as it’s the right Church.”

Last weekend, Sydney streets were occupied by people “celebrating” their  involvement in homosexual practices.

The media gave them un-critical coverage, with headlines like “Police praise Mardi Gras behaviour”. (Bigpondnews.com)

The Police, in fact, attended 140 incidents, arresting 35 people for drug possession, assault, offensive behaviour etc. One man was reportedly “seriously” assaulted, two others stabbed. One police officer fell during a brawl and suffered head injuries.

But none of that is probably the point . . . .

* * *

Would one be a spoil-sport to mention that everyone knows that homosexual acts cause disease?

We’ve known for ages that oral sex, as practised by over 90% of homosexual males, is a major means of the spread of hepatitis A and hepatitis B. (1)

Anal sex, as practised by over 90% of homosexual males, is a leading cause of gonorrhoea, syphilis and AIDS. (2)

Then there is the question of whether homosexually-active persons are more inclined than others to sexually assault children.

In Victoria, 20% of sexual assault victims are males, 83% being aged under 17. (3)

The proportion of Australian men identifying as homosexual is 1.6%.  The number identifying as “bisexual” is 0.9% (4)

If a category of less than 3% of the male population commits more than 20% of male sex crimes, isn’t that a bit of a worry?

* * *

Homosexual people must be treated respectfully. That’s true.

But that’s no excuse for media (and schools) to misinform children and to condone dangerous behaviours.

Most adolescents experiencing same-sex-attraction will lose the tendency by age 25.

Adolescents that way inclined are sometimes told that “coming out” will solve their problems.

It will not. It puts their lives in danger.

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 (1) The Lancet 399:938, (2) Journal of the American Medical Association 251: 237, (3) Victoria Police Crime Statistics 2000-2005. (4)  Aust NZ J. Public Health 27: 138-145

This week is officially “Organ Donation Awareness Week” in Australia.

It was launched last Tuesday by Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, who said it is“crucial” that  families talk about this touchy issue.

A new program administered by the Federal Organ and Tissue Authority is to offer hospitals up to $11,400 a time for harvesting transplant organs from dying patients.

Mr Rudd lamented the fact that at present only 56 percent of Australian families give consent when approached for permission to remove a dying relative’s organs for transplant purposes.

His government is spending $150 million to try to boost that percentage.

* * *

Why would families refuse to permit having their dying relatives harvested?

 *  do they doubt whether the doctors will wait until their loved one is really dead before starting to take things out?

 *  do they wonder whether “brain-death” is simply a convenient myth?

 *  do they wonder whether a person’s soul has necessarily left the body just because one organ — the brain — doesn’t look like working again?

Good questions.  The exact moment the soul departs cannot be known by scientific means.  Death is only certain when the body starts to decompose – which is why priests are permitted to give the Last Rites up to an hour after patients are certified medically dead.

By which time their organs are useless for transplanting.

Organs good enough to be worth transplanting must come from patients only pretend-dead — not dead-dead.

* * *

The government’s new pro-organ-harvesting website assures us that “most religions, including all major religions, support organ and tissue donation and transplantation as acts of generosity and merit . . . .”

Could that be a fib?

Even on life-support — while heart and lungs function, albeit artificially assisted – does not the body remain one organism, with one being, one soul?

Does that mean that it is removing his/her organs which actually kills the donor-patient?

Is that murder?

We think of China as a monolithic communist state.

But is it?

Or is there a different China that we know little about?

Out of China’s population of a billion-plus, there are only 70 million members of the Communist Party.

The number of Christians in China is estimated at 100 million and growing.

And there are so many “house churches” that nobody knows how to count them.

* * *

It is predicted that soon there will be more Christians in China than in any other country in the world.

This is a phenomenon that the Western media do not tell us about.

Is Christianity yet one more item that China will be exporting to us soon because our home-grown variety is so B-grade?

* * *

The Chinese Communist government itself has mixed feelings about its Christians.

The Catholic presence, despite persecution and repression, has great influence.

The Catholic Church in China, as in so many nations, is arguably its biggest non-government organisation.

Some Chinese leaders see Christianity as a much-needed “glue” to help keep their diverse society together.

* * *

In China, and world-wide, those who hate the Christian Faith have a few worries.

However, those who love the Faith also have worries.

Since 1970, world population has doubled.

Numbers of Muslims and Christians have both doubled.

But the big multiplier is the rising numbers of so-called Charismatic/Pentecostal “Christians” — these have increased 8-fold since 1970, now numbering about 600 million — almost a quarter of those calling themselves Christians worldwide — the majority of them ex-Catholics.

The universal culture that was once the Catholic Faith has dwindled since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.

Does not today’s world need, more than anything else, for Catholics to get their beliefs, liturgies and cultural framework back into gear in a hurry?

Saint Valentine was a Catholic priest, first clubbed almost to death — and then beheaded — by Roman Emperor Claudius, apparently on February 14, in about the year 270AD.

Claudius had ordered all Romans to worship the Roman pagan gods.

The alternative was execution.

Valentine had been famous for his real love for mankind, giving from his heart and assisting the poor, the needy and widows – and encouraging the well-to-do of his time to be generous to the less privileged in their communities.

* * *

In Saudi Arabia, celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day is prohibited.

The nation’s Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is supposed to enforce bans against “pagan holidays”.

Virtue Commission spokesman, Sheik Ali Qarni, defends this ban, saying that Muslims know the true meaning of love — the love of God — and behave accordingly throughout the year.

Of course, wherever there is a ban there is a black market. Some Saudi florists are supplying bootleg bunches of red roses (at over three times the regular price) to those who will pay.

* * *

Meanwhile, polls are reporting that 40 percent of Muslims in the United Kingdom want Sharia Law introduced in Britain – more so young British Muslims than their elders.

Muslims now number 1,591,000 in the UK — 2.7 percent of the population — a proportion said to be rising 10 times faster than rest of society.

What about Australia?

At the 2006 Census there were 340,000 Muslims in Australia. In early 2010, WikiAnswers estimates it is now 446,500 (about 2 percent of the population).

How many Australian Muslims want Sharia Law? Nobody seems to know. Perhaps we don’t want to know.

* * *

This year, Melbourne’s Latrobe University is offering an 18-month course in Master of Islamic Banking and Finance – described as a “cutting-edge program built around a defined body of knowledge of proven relevance to the Islamic finance industry”.

The thin edge of the wedge, perhaps?

Certainly, it’s a long way from amputation for thieves, stoning for adultery etc. . . . .

And a long way from being clubbed and beheaded for being a Christian . . . .

But you have to start somewhere if you want “change”, as President Obama might say.

Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, said last Wednesday that he personally favours a 21-year old minimum legal drinking age, quoting links between Australia’s high P-plater road deaths and alcohol-swallowing.

But is it not probable that most teenage drunks will vote Labor (if still alive when next election happens)?

And likewise most people who sell alcohol?

It is hard, under Australia’s present form of “democracy”, to imagine any major party – especially Rudd’s so-called “Labor” — doing anything real to upset either of those two interest groups.

* * *

Federal Opposition leader, Mr Abbott, commented that 18-year olds drinking is OK with him, because he is not a “wowser”.

Deep stuff, eh?

* * *

The scientific evidence about drinking ages and alcohol-related mayhem is, of course, well and truly in.

Professor Ian Hickie, at Sydney University’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, really does want legal alcohol drinking ages raised to 21 — on the basis of research showing that young people’s brains are particularly susceptible to alcohol damage.

Also the US experience, which provides further evidence –- in those states which have raised their drinking age to 21, accidents and violence involving youths having fallen . . . .

* * *

Both sides of Australian politics are carefully testing the water. Could it be that winning the next election is almost as important to both of them as is doing the right thing — i.e. preventing teenage deaths?

* * *

Once again, the Church isn’t much help.

Two generations ago, when young Catholics celebrated their Confirmation, they were encouraged to sign an undertaking not to drink before turning 21. Many adhered to that promise.

Will that excellent practice ever be re-introduced?

Or would Church leaders need to “test the water” too – so as not to offend anybody – pretty much like a bunch of politicians?

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